Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

28THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND CIVIL WARTHEY ARE TRYING TO FRIGHTEN US WITH CIVIL WARThe bourgeoisie, frightened by the refusal of the Mensheviksand Socialist-Revolutionaries to join a bloc with theCadets, and by the probability of the democrats being quitecapable of forming a government without them and governingRussia against them, are doing their best to intimidatethe democrats.Scare them as much as you can! This is the slogan of thewhole bourgeois press. Scare them with all your might!Lie, slander, but frighten them!Birzhevka 13 does its scaring by fabricating news aboutBolshevik activities. Others by spreading rumours aboutAlexeyev’s resignation, and about the imminent Germanoffensive against Petrograd, as if the facts do not provethat it is the Kornilov generals (to whom Alexeyev undoubtedlybelongs) who are capable of opening the front to theGermans in Galicia and near Riga and near Petrograd, andthat it is the Kornilov generals who are arousing the greatesthatred in the army against the General Staff.To make this method of intimidating the democratsmore “solid” and convincing, they refer to the danger of“civil war”. Of all the methods of intimidation, that ofscaring with civil war is perhaps the most widespread. Hereis the way the Rostov-on-the-Don Committee of the people’sfreedom party formulated this widespread idea, heartily welcomedin philistine circles, in its resolution of September 1(Rech 14 No. 210):“The Committee is convinced that civil war may sweep away allthe gains of the revolution and drown in rivers of blood our young,still unstable freedom, and is of the opinion that it is necessary to